KNOT Magazine
Fall Issue 2022
B.Z. Niditch
PAZ IS PASSING BY
(1914-1998)
Paz is passing by
his voice remembers
when city streets
would welcome words
of civility
your thoughts
a repast of taste
with the intimate
reprimanded recurrences
and sentences
of your stranded past
you speak and sing to me
over names that slept
a thousand days
in rose blossoming
over deserts
of thirst of watering holes
from Mexico's sounds
ascending in the dawn
even now
his gated shadows are here
enough reported
and said by your cortege.
R.B. KITAJ'S POETS
(1932-2007)
At the Berlin Jewish museum
a poet writing turns toward me
embracing signs of history
and art from California
from your yellow studio
at those days R.B.Kitaj once
traced back in Berkeley
in drawn paints on screen
of wet silhouettes
remembering his tribute
to Creeley and Duncan
who visit you, Kitaj
in London, 1977
with unrelenting brushstrokes
from outdoor cafes of lovers.
VIRGINIA WOOLF'S PART
(1882- 1941)
In your living room
of entrance, entr'acte
and departure
from crystal goblets
you drink and draw in
from blinds and awnings
of a fallen crossword abyss
in your answered mind
visiting from a metamorphosis
of a quest on boulevards
overlooking the sea
flowers found on roads
you pick up rose petals
near the fountain water
wrapped in quiet silences
a crisp tongue rolled
over the lawn mower
by London green
at dawn's walk of the dog
moving to leaves on fire
an astonished figure in the sun
waving only to the wind
with a post -war cut story
pasted from the vessels
of your outlook opens
at an optimistic notebook
her crystal pocketbook
in her hands
remembering how art
enters and leaves our world
as a well known influence
from your own image
of renewed language
from square toed critics
who have gone before you
with their own petulance
love, prejudice or parlance.
JANE FREILICHER'S ART
(1924-2014)
You crashed against
the careful landscapes
in an avalanche of paint
as a tenant of breathless
wall art
scents of a kindled hand
knowing your signature
will not remain suspended
in water shed reputations
along the Hudson
from a raining downpour
of hypnotic spellbound drawings,
in a lightness of a viaduct
of being connected
as we came to visit you
from California's entrance
here we depart
Omaha all aboard
with John Denver
even Lord Baltimore's here
get up kid, he tells me
in my blue beret
take off your Gogol overcoat
Big Apple, next stop
your urban read
is ready for first announcing
in its buzz
we are on call,
let's visit the museum.
ELIZABETH BISHOP'S WALK
(1911-1979)
We waved as grackles rose
on Cambridge Common
standing near the Charles River
a young poet on the corner
near the news stand
by the first rays of the sun
his alto sax blown near
the bicycle racks
waiting under every limb
of a hundred years of Evergreen
holding Virgil as a guide
by the law faculty
at a Mass. Avenue sighting
needing your company
as you returned from Brazil
refreshed and vetted
I'm palpitating by a hornets nest
fro an allergic reaction
after attending religious session
on meditation
you show her a new poem
and abracadabra,
the dead wind of December
becomes alive.
B.Z Niditch is a poet, playwright, and fiction writer.
His work is widely published in journals and magazines throughout the world, including: Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art; The Literary Review; Denver Quarterly; Hawaii Review; Le Guepard (France); Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Hungary); Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among others. His newest poetry collection, "Everything, Everywhere," will be available from Penhead Press in September.
He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.